Attendance: 4

As it had been the C15PS Annual General Meeting the day before not much work had been done on the locos, so it would be on the Sunday that progress was made on the loco, Jason was joined by Dave Pendleton and Stephen Smith with the focus on getting some of the jobs that had defeated the crew a fortnight ago finished off starting with the cab pipe work, last time it had been a lack of suitable spanners for the 2” union joints that had been the problem but this time round Jason had got some spanners that fitted properly one he had custom made by grinding out the jaws of another old large spanner, so using these they carefully adjusted the union joints on each end of the cross over pipe eventually they had got them nice and tight and secure, next it was onto the No1 end Vacuum brake valve stand pipe that had been twisted out of alignment by the fitting of the top flange, the flange was removed the stand pipe realigned and then the flange was refitted, and once everything was in the correct orientation the Westinghouse train brake valve was fitted, next the flange & brake valve on the other stand pipe were fitted up and with that the 2” cab pipework was finished.

Next they moved onto the R/H exhauster pipe, utilising the newly acquired 45 deg angle fittings Jason and Dave soon managed to get a pipe mocked up that was more in keeping with the look of the original, by this time Big Tom from Holland had joined us and Jason took the pipe fittings down to the container to tighten them onto the fittings, then back on the loco the two end of the pipe was applied and the vac bag they had been using for test fitting purposes was fitted and the angles and alignment now looked to be about right so that was another part of the vac system completed after which the guys stopped for lunch.

After lunch things didn't go so well, the next task was to fit the 3/4” drain pipes to the exhausters, some pipes had already been pre cut and threaded for this tasks using the lengths given in the original plans, but first the L/H exhauster needed to be unbolted so they could be raised up so that the drain pipes could be threaded into the drain plugs on the base of the sumps that were flush to the floor, Jason & Tom used a verity of tools to get onto the awkward to reach bolts, eventually they were undone and the exhauster could be raised, when the drain plug was removed a small amount of residual oil oozed out of the plug, but when the pipe was offered up it was found to be ¾” too short, after some head scratching Jason realised that the exhauster sump had been modified and the drain hole was slightly out of its original position, so new pipes had to be cut & threaded back at the container, eventually the horizontal pipe and elbow were fitted and the exhauster could be bolted back down, a modification we are fitting to the drain pipes is the addition of a drain tap, however when the vertical pipe was offered up it passes so close to the sole bar that there is insufficient room to thread on the drain tap, by this time it was getting late and dark so they bolted the exhauster back down, had a quick tidy up and took all the took back to support coach, so ended another days work on D8233

If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton